It is never possible to know for sure how many people in the United States are sick with COVID-19 at any given time. Instead, we combine all the metrics – the percentage of tests that come back positive, the number of new cases reported each day, people who come to the emergency room sick with COVID-19 symptoms – to get an estimate. It’s like the story of blind men and elephants: experts can experience different parts of information to understand whether it erupts when they can’t see it directly.
We’ve seen the same elephant emerge again over the past year. First, the percentage of tests that return positive increases. After a while, he begins to be admitted to the hospital, and then dies. But this time, there is a new wrinkle: vaccination. It’s hard to change that pattern and create Covid-19 trends in the next few weeks and months.
One of the most important data points to prevent the spread of the virus is the number of people admitted to the hospital with a disease like Covid-19 at a certain time. It is a concrete metric. If a person is so sick that they need to be hospitalized, they are usually in the hospital. Other measures, such as the case rate and test positivity rate, are tight; They fluctuate depending on how many people decide to test.
“Hospitalization is a difficult outcome for us. Everything else is based on testing, ”says Melissa M. Capiters, co-director of the Center for Public Health Improvement through Informatics at Vanderbilt University. That is why we have paid attention to the tendency of hospitalization to gain an understanding of the direction of the epidemic even when the case rate is trembling.
Now, the U.S. The COVID-19 case has started again. But this time, 70 percent of people over the age of 65 in the United States have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. This is the group that, if they catch the virus, are more likely to be hospitalized or die. Now they are vaccinated – and their risk of hospitalization and death is extremely small.
It can hit our general data pattern. Cases may increase as many states have a ban on exemptions while most people have not yet been vaccinated. But people who have flown without getting sick may be younger and less likely to be hospitalized.
Our usual method of imagining an elephant will no longer work. That’s a good problem – fewer people in the hospital is a wonderful victory. But when the number of cases dwindles and testing goes up and down, hospitalization will not be a reliable backstop to clarify what is happening with the epidemic. “I don’t know how much better we can get from a sample of what’s going on in the community,” McFitter says.
This may mean that we need to re-establish the way we monitor epidemics. There may be fewer people in the hospital, but we can pay close attention to that group, for example. If a lot of people in an area of a city are in a hospital, or people who work in the same industry, it could be a sign that there are more viruses in that particular community – which can help people determine their risk and show authorities. Where to direct resources. “It simply came to our notice then WHO “The hospital ends up,” McFitter says.
Sending children to school, meeting up with a few friends, or delivering groceries, people have been testing the Covid-19 matrix since last year to guide their decision on how they should behave. Eventually, as more people are vaccinated, new methods may begin to emerge that can guide this analysis. And when the epidemic starts to fade, we don’t have to look very closely at the COVID-19 numbers. But so far, everything is in flux, and we can’t assume that the numbers mean the same thing today as it did in January.
Here’s what else happened this week.
Research
Covid is unlocking the code
Take a deep dive into the world of genetic sequencing – and explore how this tool can change public health in the post-epidemic world. (John Gertner / The New York Times)
No one will be able to find the animal that gave people COVID-19
Groups are searching for the animal that first passed the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans, eliminating the epidemic. It is not an easy task, and international politics makes it very difficult. (Anthony Regaldo / MIT Tech Review)
Development
AstraZeneca’s wild ride
On Monday, AstraZeneca announced that its vaccine is 79 percent effective. The next day, the government reprimanded the company for its incredible unusual publicity, saying the numbers were outdated. AstraZeneca released new numbers later this week and found that they were actually 76 percent effective. Wow. In the end, it is a good vaccine with a bad communication problem. The FDA committee hearing on this will be interesting. (Nicole Wetsman / Edge)
Pfizer begins testing its vaccine in young children
Children under the age of 12 are beginning to participate in clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine. Both Pfizer and Moderna are launching their own tests to see how well vaccines work in younger patients – and whether they are safe. (Apoorva Mandavili / The New York Times)
Here is one of the best videos from our colleagues at VOX explaining the differences between vaccine efficacy numbers.
Perspective
There were two weeks in the summer when all she could smell was phantom smoke. The smell was so strong that she woke up one morning in shock, convinced that something was on fire in her house. Afterwards, she managed to bring her boyfriend’s colon back into the scent – but instead of the always-known scent, it was a monstrous chemical scent. There is also hand soap at work, which used to smell like normal fruit for her, but now smells just like Burger King Whippers, and soothing.
– Sarah Zhang wrote about Ruby Martinez’s experience that COVID-19 recovered her sense of smell Atlantic.
By December 10, my health-care plan had billed me 6 6,536,000. Most of my plan has been paid for, but I still owe about 150 150,000. It does not include my bill for planting. Medical bills leg; Things take months to get through. At first, watching them was stressful for me, but now it’s a joke. I look at them and think, I don’t know how to pay for it. My premium is 50 750 a month, and my coworkers are getting ready to cover it.
– Lisa Fisher tells journalist Wudan Yan about the price of COVID-19 in a story Intelligent.
More than the number
More than 505 million vaccinated – thank you.
For over 125,864,307 people worldwide who have tested positive, your path to recovery becomes easier.
To the families and friends of the 2,761,409 people who have died worldwide – U.S. 547,756 – Don’t forget your loved ones.
Be safe, everyone.
